Which version/release of the Star Wars movies do you watch and why? — Page 5

Sure, and history is full of authors who died 95% of the way through a book, etc, having their work completed by a relative or someone hired by the publisher, spurring raging debates over author's intent, etc.

I hate to get all post-modernist on this thread, but the whole idea of authorship in art is much less relevant than people give it credit for. The meaning of a work to society is frequently not what the author or authors or executive producers or publishers intended it to be. And who's right when there's a disagreement between the creator and society? IMO the readers, viewers, fans, etc, are always right. It's society who gives a work its real meaning, which is how the meaning of a work can change over time, and successfully become timeless... or fail to do so.

So it doesn't MATTER who edited what when and for what reason, really. What matters is that a big chunk of society saw this hodgepodge collective work and fell in love, probably for hundreds of completely different reasons. And it became a cultural force of its own at that point.

And that's what's important, the cultural impact, and that's what we're trying to preserve. All the discussion about author's intent and definitive versions and crap is beside the point.  Not that we can't have opinions on those, naturally.

Harmy said:

 

trimboNZ said (in the ESB:R thread):

Recently I sat down with my seven year old son and introduced him to Star Wars.  ANH seemed the right place to start and as for which version, well there was no contest.

My next dilemma is whether to wait for this edit to be completed before showing him ESB.

 

 

Having just read this, I must apologise to thecolorsblend and acknowledge that there is something to what he says. In light of this post, fanedits don't seem altogether as harmless as I'd have liked to think. The post shows that some people may actually be exposed to a fanedit of a film before they saw the original and there's definitely something wrong and disturbing about that.

Although I must say that STAR WARS and specifically Revisited is a bit of a special case, since Ady's version is is actually closer to the original cut than the official Special Edition, so I definitely think it's preferable for first time viewers to be shown Revisited than the Special Edition.

No apologies necessary. Anywho, I "excuse" Ady on the grounds that ANH-R ought to shame The Technicians That Be at Lucasfilm, who have a lot more money and better equipment at their disposal, and yet their product is inferior to his. I don't know if that's what Ady set out to prove when he started working on the movie but that's one thing he's definitely accomplished.

CatBus said:

I hate to get all post-modernist on this thread, but the whole idea of authorship in art is much less relevant than people give it credit for. The meaning of a work to society is frequently not what the author or authors or executive producers or publishers intended it to be. And who's right when there's a disagreement between the creator and society? IMO the readers, viewers, fans, etc, are always right. It's society who gives a work its real meaning, which is how the meaning of a work can change over time, and successfully become timeless... or fail to do so.

So it doesn't MATTER who edited what when and for what reason, really. What matters is that a big chunk of society saw this hodgepodge collective work and fell in love, probably for hundreds of completely different reasons. And it became a cultural force of its own at that point.

And that's what's important, the cultural impact, and that's what we're trying to preserve. All the discussion about author's intent and definitive versions and crap is beside the point.  Not that we can't have opinions on those, naturally.

Not the point. This isn't about an artist's intent vs. the public's interpretation. That's beyond anybody. This is about an artist's moral right to not have his/her work tampered with. The examples you cite of an author dying and somoene else finishing the work is an extreme case. There is no real option to release the work as is most of the time so someone else is brought in to finish it off. It's apples and oranges.

This is about an artist's moral right to not have his/her work tampered with. 

I agree with you in the philosophical sense, but in film, the process (today, anyway) is tilted so that the artist is frequently powerless, for various reasons.  I mentioned Superman II because it shows that the "official products" that we receive have quite often tampered with the artist's work to an unacceptable degree, and to show that there are some instances where a fanedit can be the only way of restoring a creative vision.  

silverwheel said:

But this "final cut" has not been provided - who will provide it, if not the fanedits?  (please note that I have yet to encounter a fanedit that actually does a good job of this, but I know it is possible).  

You know, in a way, that actually supports my point; I don't know this for a fact but from what you say, I assume there were fanedits that tried to make this "final cut" but failed, right? And what if someone's first experience with Superman II is one of these? That's my point, a fan editor may very well make a film better but he may just as well make it worse and I have no problem with that, as long as the people watching it are aware that they're watching a vision of some guy from the internets and are already familiar with the original material assembled by the people who created it or, yes,  paid for it - then if the faneditor made the film worse, it doesn't form the viewer's opinion on it.

thecolorsblend said:

This is about an artist's moral right to not have his/her work tampered with. 

And what I'm saying, perhaps too obliquely, is that the only way an artist can actually achieve that is to never let anyone else see their art.  Tampering through interpretation happens the second another human eyeball sees it.  Tampering through more direct means (editing, co-authorship) happens with such pedestrian regularity that most don't even consider it tampering most of the time.  If an artist has the moral right to not have their work tampered with, it is very much like the right for men to give birth to babies a la Life of Brian.  Yeah they've got the right but it never happens.

If you put a work out in the public space, it will be parroted, parodied, sampled, remixed, etc.  If you're lucky, because that means it has meaning to someone else.  As long as it's not some sort of attempt to fraudulently pass something off as the original, I've got no problem there.  You can even parody it yourself twenty years later, just don't pass it off as the original.

EDIT: This means that IMO fan edits are EXACTLY the same as the Special Editions, by every moral measure except fraud (except that there's the special case for Star Wars of it being just rude to fan edit what may someday be a lost film).  They only differ in quality.

If you put a work out in the public space, it will be parroted, parodied, sampled, remixed, etc.  If you're lucky, because that means it has meaning to someone else.  As long as it's not some sort of attempt to fraudulently pass something off as the original, I've got no problem there.  You can even parody it yourself twenty years later, just don't pass it off as the original.

You raise a good point - I've lost count of the number of pop-culture items that have been introduced to me via parody (particularly from the Simpsons) and none have tainted or ruined my eventual experience of the real thing.  

Well, a parody is something completely, absolutely different from a fan edit.

I sort of corned myself into an anti-fanedits position, I'm not against fanedits, not by a long shot. I'm just trying to explain why I don't think it's good to use a fanedit to introduce someone to a film in most cases.

CatBus said:

EDIT: This means that IMO fan edits are EXACTLY the same as the Special Editions, by every moral measure except fraud.

Considering that Lucas didn't direct ESB or ROTJ, I would argue that those Special Editions are rather morally questionable, since he's screwing around with them at his leisure, and then telling us in the end credits that they were directed by Irvin Kershner or Richard Marquand.  No, these are not the films made by those people.  

Harmy said:

Well, a parody is something completely, absolutely different from a fan edit.

I sort of corned myself into an anti-fanedits position, I'm not against fanedits, not by a long shot. I'm just trying to explain why I don't think it's good to use a fanedit to introduce someone to a film in most cases.

Yeah, the parody part was straying off-course a bit.

Most fanedits are terrible ways of introducing a film.  Take, for example, the fanedit of Heat made by some bozo who thinks the film would work better without all that pesky character depth.  Most fanedits are junk, period.  But all can be instructive in how the craft of editing can make or break a film.

I fully agree but they can only be instructive in that way if you're familiar with the original :-)

Harmy said:

I fully agree but they can only be instructive in that way if you're familiar with the original :-)

True.

Harmy said:

 

trimboNZ said (in the ESB:R thread):

Recently I sat down with my seven year old son and introduced him to Star Wars.  ANH seemed the right place to start and as for which version, well there was no contest.

My next dilemma is whether to wait for this edit to be completed before showing him ESB.

 

Having just read this, I must apologise to thecolorsblend and acknowledge that there is something to what he says. In light of this post, fanedits don't seem altogether as harmless as I'd have liked to think. The post shows that some people may actually be exposed to a fanedit of a film before they saw the original and there's definitely something wrong and disturbing about that.

That's how I feel about remakes. Whenever I'm talking 'favorite films' with people, it seems like I'm constantly having to say "Oh, No no no. I'm talking about the ORIGINAL Dawn Of The Dead / Texas Chainsaw Massacre / Halloween ect. ect. NOT the shitty remake." it's quite frustrating.

The thing with fan edits is that 1- they are usually something that a fan has to seek out on their own. So it's not likely to be mistaken for the original It's not like they sell fan edit DVDs at Best Buy alongside the original cuts. (except for the Star Wars films of course. In that case GL's fan edits are the only ones available.) and 2- the files that are downloaded generally marked "FAN EDIT BY SOMECRAZYBASTARD!" unlike remakes which are usually advertised as if it was a brand new film. I find it hard to believe that people are being exposed to fan edits thinking that it's the original cut. ...Unless of course they are being shown the edited versions by someone who is withholding important information from them...

silverwheel said:

CatBus said:

EDIT: This means that IMO fan edits are EXACTLY the same as the Special Editions, by every moral measure except fraud.

Considering that Lucas didn't direct ESB or ROTJ, I would argue that those Special Editions are rather morally questionable...

Well that's the fraud part, and Star Wars doesn't get off the hook either.  Fans can edit ESB or ROTJ and there's no problem with that because they don't claim to be the real thing.  If Lucas didn't pretend that the edited version was the real thing, there'd be no fraud on his end either.

I watch whichever one is most convenient at the time. For instance, I am watching ESB Blu-Ray as I type this. But, as soon as I get a new VHS I am popping in the 1985 widescreens. I think it was '85 anyways...

Paramecium302 said:

I watch whichever one is most convenient at the time.

I used to watch whatever was least convenient ;)

Not because I liked having to do a g----mn treasure hunt just to watch a movie ("OMG! Japanese Special Collection LD set is up on EBay! Must bid!"), but that was simply the only way to see it.  Now options are improving and it's almost as convenient & easy to see Star Wars now as it is to see any other movie.  But there are limits--I doubt Netflix will ever carry anything but the Special Editions, for example.

Paramecium302 said:

I watch whichever one is most convenient at the time. For instance, I am watching ESB Blu-Ray as I type this. But, as soon as I get a new VHS I am popping in the 1985 widescreens. I think it was '85 anyways...

Yep-----same me!

Although the 1st widescreen VHS's were released in 1991.

(i think it was available on laserdisc as early as 1987 in Japan and 1989 in the US)

silverwheel said:

CatBus said:

EDIT: This means that IMO fan edits are EXACTLY the same as the Special Editions, by every moral measure except fraud.

Considering that Lucas didn't direct ESB or ROTJ, I would argue that those Special Editions are rather morally questionable, since he's screwing around with them at his leisure, and then telling us in the end credits that they were directed by Irvin Kershner or Richard Marquand.  No, these are not the films made by those people.  

Film making is a collaborative process by it's very nature.

Parts of  any /most films have a lot of 2nd unit footage(shot by a different director) which still has to be approved by the main director before it finds it's way into the final edit.

For instance, the battle at Helms Deep in LOTR:The 2 Towers was NOT shot by Peter Jackson-----considering it is such a pivotal part of that movie's climax  it's quite surprising that Jackson did not helm it-----but he still Quality controlled how it got edited into the final cut.

Lucas "collaborated" with both Marquand and Kershner as they shot  their respective films...from conception to execution(aswell as participating in some 2nd unit direction).

For Empire:

While The Empire was being made, Lucas showed up at the London studios, where the interiors were shot, only three times. "I'd invite him to stand by the camera," says Kershner, "and he wouldn't. He'd say, 'It's your picture.' Then he'd stand way, way back somewhere, craning his neck." Kershner added his own touches, such as softer, more reflected lighting than the direct light Lucas employed in Star Wars. But he was always operating with Lucas' story, and he knew that Lucas, diffident as he was, was looking over his shoulder. If Lucas was in California, a videotape of the rushes was flown from London after each day's shooting.

For Jedi:

Says Marquand: "It is as if Lucas were a famous composer who said to me, 'Here's a 120-piece orchestra. Here's my music. I'd like you to conduct.' "

George has every right to tamper with these films irrespective of whether the final outcome improves or degenerates the final product.

Harmy said:

silverwheel said:

But this "final cut" has not been provided - who will provide it, if not the fanedits?  (please note that I have yet to encounter a fanedit that actually does a good job of this, but I know it is possible).  

You know, in a way, that actually supports my point; I don't know this for a fact but from what you say, I assume there were fanedits that tried to make this "final cut" but failed, right? And what if someone's first experience with Superman II is one of these? That's my point, a fan editor may very well make a film better but he may just as well make it worse and I have no problem with that, as long as the people watching it are aware that they're watching a vision of some guy from the internets and are already familiar with the original material assembled by the people who created it or, yes,  paid for it - then if the faneditor made the film worse, it doesn't form the viewer's opinion on it.

This reminds me of a chap called selutron who re-edited superman II:

http://www.supermanhomepage.com/movies/movies.php?topic=interview-selutron

He shot new scenes and even pitched director Donner and Manclewitz(Superman script writer).

He was recieved well but obviously he was still nothing more than a guy behind a computer pretending to be something bigger.

He was dismissed.

danny_boy said:

Paramecium302 said:

I watch whichever one is most convenient at the time. For instance, I am watching ESB Blu-Ray as I type this. But, as soon as I get a new VHS I am popping in the 1985 widescreens. I think it was '85 anyways...

 

Yep-----same me!

Although the 1st widescreen VHS's were released in 1991.

(i think it was available on laserdisc as early as 1987 in Japan and 1989 in the US)

Ah, that's right. Regardless! They're excellent, I still have the box they came in where they lay flt next to each other.... bunch of old Star Wars coupons in there too.

Not sure if foreign or bad spammer.